Statistical analysis
The database was examined for potential outliers concerning questions
related to demography variables to exclude invalid questionnaires. Some
of the variables were assessed by multiple questions than consolidated
in an average (e.g. risk aversion score is the average of questions
related to psychological (P) characteristics P1 to P5, health
responsibility (R) score is the average of questions R1 to R5)
(Appendix 2 ). The representativeness of the participants and
completion rate compared to the number of registered beekeepers in the
Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) database was
evaluated with a chi-squared test (α = 0.05; df=1). A two-samplet -test with unequal variances (Welch-test) was performed to
compare the means of each variable regarding the colony mortality rate;
i.e. under the 10% colonies mortality threshold and above or equal the
10% (Morgenthaler, 1968). The cut-off level of 0.05 was considered as
the p -value for significance.